Three and 1/2 months ago Hollywood Elsewhere saw the same sadistic Suspiria scene that director Luca Guadagnino screened earlier today at Cinemacon. The general reaction so far has been “whoa, that was intense.” Set in a rainy, chilly Berlin sometime in the ’70s, the scene happens inside a prestigious dance academy. Some kind of brutal hex decimates a middle-aged woman, apparently because she’s seen as an enemy of a witch’s coven that operates out of the dance school, and which is run by Tilda Swinton.

As a young American ballerina (Dakota Johnson) dances and twirls, the victim is slapped and pounded and walloped by some invisible voodoo-doll force.

I felt dazzled and jarred by this sequence. First rate, very well cut, etc. I was especially taken by a shadowy extreme close-up of a smiling witch face. I didn’t quite know what to do with the rainy Berlin atmosphere and especially all the sunlight that floods into the dance studio. Like everyone else on the planet, I associate horror with a dark, shadowy vibe — weird mood lighting, impressionistic designs, hints of blood and organs, a generally creepy feeling. This didn’t look like horror — it looked like matter-of-fact realism.

What I love about Guadagnino’s I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and Call Me By Your Name is that they’re all “Luca” — they all convey that lulling, sensual, sun-dappled northern Italian atmosphere — a way of being, living, tasting, feeling, etc.

Suspiria is obviously a departure from this — primarily about Luca adapting and expanding upon his reactions to Argento’s 1977 classic, and then blending this with his own instincts and dreamscapes.

Before I saw the Suspiria clip I had somehow imagined that Luca might integrate his “signature” style into the Argento realm and produce a chilling but sensual northern Italian horror film. Scary but with that special Luca attitude and chemistry. Something along those lines.

What I saw and felt lacked that familiar elegance, that warmth, that “this is who I am and how I live my life” feeling. Which obviously makes sense, given the witches-and-bitches subject matter.

As I didn’t know the victim character but presumed she was in a position to threaten the coven, I could only watch her agony as she was thrown around and contorted and began vomiting yellow liquid.

I’m not saying it’s unwelcome to see Guadagnino operating in a horror realm and igniting his imagination with fresh impressions, but it didn’t feel familiar in that sensual “welcome to my world” way that I’ve come to associate with his manner/vision/style.

Live-wire concert footage from Bryan Singer and Dexter Fletcher‘s Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox, 11.2) was screened a while ago at Cinemacon. Rami Malek (who really doesn’t look much like the Parsi-descended, Zanzibar-born Freddie Mercury) was shown performing the title tune plus “We Are The Champions,” etc.

Neither Singer nor Fletcher made an appearance, which is weird. Tell me how Singer doesn’t end up with the lion’s share of credit. He directed…what, 85% if not 90% of the film before Fletcher took over?

No one’s ever doubted that Malek wouldn’t channel Mercury to everyone’s delight, particularly Queen fans. A Best Actor Oscar nomination seems achievable if not likely. The question, as I mentioned in a 4.17 thumbnail appraisal of an early draft of the Bohemian Rhapsody script, is whether or not the finished film will seem a little too “family friendly” and/or lacking a certain adult edge.

As I said a couple of days ago, death has never been respected in the Marvel nor the D.C. universe. The MCU “mostly regards death and serious physical injury as a tease, a plot toy, something to fiddle or fuck with until the apparently dead character comes back to life,” I reflected at one point.

I believe in some of the deaths that happen in Avengers: Infinity War (i.e., the passings of minor characters) but certainly not the digital disintegration ones that happen with a snap of Thanos’ fingers. It’s almost all bullshit, almost all of it be reversed or reneged upon in the Infinity War sequel that will open a year from now.

Nonetheless, author and Film Threat founder & publisher Chris Gore recently said on Facebook that he believes Avengers: Infinity War will prove a very traumatic event for younger moviegoers. He said he noticed a young kid “balling” (sic) after Tuesday’s all-media at the El Capitan. To which I replied, “Gee…tough, kid. Sorry to break it to ya, but death happens to everyone and everything. I wish it were otherwise. On top of which the guys who make Marvel movies are liars and con artists. You really shouldn’t fall for their bullshit because, really, it’s all a crock.”

It sounds, in short, like the bawling child has been raised in a fantasy vacuum by parents who know not what they do. An eight-year-old bawling over Bambi’s mother getting shot by a hunter — that I understand. (When I was seven or eight I dreamt that my mom died, and it took me a couple of days to get over it.) But bawling over a team of wisecracking superheroes played by a gang of ironically removed, abundantly well-compensated actors who are in it solely for the paychecks…please!

Bill Cosby, 80, is almost certainly going to do some time. Having been found guilty today of three counts of aggravated indecent assault (i.e., mickey-finn rape), the legendary comedian and TV star could receive a sentence of ten years, which means he’ll probably what? 22 months or more? Throw the book at him.

Each of the counts — penetration with lack of consent, penetration while unconscious, and penetration after administering an intoxicant — are punishable by up to 10 years in state prison, although in Pennsylvania sentences are sometimes served concurrently.

The 45 Cosby victims (i.e., “the Cosbies”) need to gather together this evening, or at least hit bars or restaurants near their homes, and raise a glass.

Starting at 1:15: “Both in the United States and Europe, we are living through a time of anger and fear. But these feelings do not build anything. You can play with fear and anger for a time, but anger only freezes and weakens us. As Franklin Roosevelt said in his first inaugural [address], ‘The only thing we have to fear is hear itself.'”

From a just-posted Michael Arceneaux piece in Rolling Stone — “Why Kanye West’s Pro-Trump Tweets Are a Real Threat“: “The conservative movement has never had an advocate as cool as Kanye West and many should be alarmed. West doesn’t need conservatives to elevate him, but they will benefit from his boosting of their beloved mouthpieces under the guise of promotion of ‘free thinking.’

“Then there is the image of Kanye West donning a Make America Great Again hat while declaring that Trump is his ‘brother.’

“When you wear that hat, you are aligning yourself with the man who wants to deport immigrants who have done nothing but pursue a better life; to bar trans people from serving in our military; to subject gay, bi and queer people to legally protected prejudices of all variances; to subject black people to harsher realities in every facet of our lives; to deny women autonomy over their own bodies. Worse, you are joining the likes of the tiki-torch–clutching white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville in the promotion of what that hat and the man behind it symbolizes.

“The inconvenient truth is that there are a number of black people more interested in enjoying the perks of white privilege than in leveling the playing field. Where Kanye West falls on that line has been clear for a while, but it is now undeniable. Conservatives have long wanted to reel in as many black faces as they could to uphold the status quo. With Kanye West going full on alt-right on us, they’ve just found their best recruiter ever.”

HE approves of any and all musical tributes to classic American TV culture. Remember the sing-along bus-ride sequence in Planes, Trains and Automobiles? That aside, the first thing that pops is that “Peter Quill” looks like Alex Karras (i.e., “Mongo”) in Blazing Saddles, Aldo Ray‘s “Sgt. Muldoon” in The Green Berets or post-2012 Gerard Butler. And what’s the reaction to Chris Evans‘ late ’70s/early ’80s gay-clone look (flattop, moustache)?

The jury on the second Bill Cosby-Andrea Costand trial (i.e., three charges of aggravated indecent assault) deliberated all day today without result. The trial happened in the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Same racial composition as the jury for the first trial, which ended on 6.17.17 as a mistrial — all white except for one black man and one black woman. I’ve assumed from the get-go that an O.J. factor resulted in a reluctance to convict Dr. Cliff Huxtable. “This is the jury system, the social values of this country, the way people tend to see things,” I wrote when the mistrial was announced. “You’re rich and famous and played a nice guy on TV? A juror or two will find a way not to convict.”

I have an interest in this case because a friend, Joan Tarshis, told me several years ago that she became one of Cosby’s victims in 1969. Twice. I posted her account of the Cosby violations on 11.16.14. There are reportedly 45 women who have accused Cosby of mickey-finn rape. There are probably still more who haven’t yet spilled the beans.

I’m fairly certain I’ll never forget this video for the rest of my life. Posted nearly 17 months ago, 56,345,332 viewers so far. I’ll bet that’s a lot more than the total number of people who’ve seen or even heard of Joseph H. Lewis‘s Gun Crazy. A new Bluray of this 1950 classic pops on 5.8.18. This is the kind of subliterate world we live in.

It’s odd when you suddenly tune into an actor who’s been working all along but hasn’t been “in the conversation” for decades, but who was definitely happening when young. And you say to yourself, “Okay, he looks good and appears to have been taken care of himself, but what’s he been doing for the last 40 or 45 years?”

This happened a couple of hours ago when I watched a trailer for an apparently flawed film called Welcome To The Men’s Group (5.18), and I noticed that the lead, at least according to the publicity notes, is Timothy Bottoms. It’s always pleasing to notice that an older guy has come through rough times with his health and a sense of humor and a semblance of solvency, but I was taken back.

Now 66, married and living in Santa Barbara, Bottoms was really hot in his early 20s. His biggest role, of course, was Sonny Crawford in Peter Bogdanovich‘s The Last Picture Show (’71); he also starred that year in Johnny Got His Gun, in James Bridges‘ The Paper Chase (’73) and Phillip Kaufman‘s The White Dawn (’74).

And then he seemed to succumb to that early ’70s mindset and begin to behave in a kind of mystical, druggy, hippie-dippy way, and after a while became the guy who kind of flaked out and followed the path of Dennis Hopper and George Lazenby and other ’60s actors who said “whatever, man” to the idea of careerism and acting being about hard work, hunger, devotion and discipline.

There was a moment on a Merv Griffin Show appearance when Bottoms, wearing a kind of Indian sarong, led the audience in a sing-along of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Gently Down The Stream,” etc. It was the kind of thing that people did back then. People who had left the planet, I mean.

Here are excerpts from a 5.28.01 People profile called “Bottoms Up,” written by Tom Gliatto:

“In the late ’70s, Bottoms’s career came apart. By then, increasingly reclusive on a 340-acre Big Sur ranch he bought in 1974, he was hooked on a variety of drugs — ‘whatever anybody else was doing,’ he says.

“In 1979 a Jesuit friend took Bottoms under his wing and steered him away from the drugs. But his attempted 1981 comeback in Broadway’s The Fifth of July was disastrous. In the midst of a custody fight with Cory, ‘mentally I just wasn’t able to handle it,’ he says. Quitting the show in rehearsal, ‘I took a train home and called Marcia.’

Between today’s First Man, Boy Erased and BlackkKlansman previews, yesterday’s A Star Is Born first-anywhere trailer and Monday’s Quentin-and-Leo appearance to promote Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, it seems as if I picked the wrong Cinemacon to not attend. Over the last couple of years I’ve been dismayed by the big-studio tendency to only promote lowest-common-denominator, jizz-whizz, bass-thump, animal-level crap. Now, out of the blue, three adult-level, beyond-the-cheap-seats films are suddenly the big Cinemacon topics of discussion. Go figure. HE to Mitch Neuhauser: Is it okay if I attend next year?

“Perfect isn’t easy / some would say that it’s a dream / but comfortable is always and forever /
‘Cause when you’re being you and you don’t care what people think / you’ll find happiness in good or bad weather”

You know you’ve sunk to the bottom of the celebrity-endorsement barrel when you’re starring in a La-La Land-ish musical pitch for the lowest, most socially deplorable level of comfort shoe ever invented — Crocs. Poor Drew Barrymore….first her low-rent Santa Clarita Diet Netflix series, and now this.

The key lyric is “and you don’t care what people think.” Because we know what people think. Have you ever seen a person wearing Crocs who didn’t make you go “eewww” if not avert your eyes? Wearing Crocs is like draping a flashing electric sign around your heck that says “I am sartorially clueless…I have no shame, no taste…I may own a Bel-Air mansion, but my Crocs suggest that I’m a low-class donkey who eats onion rings for dinner and lives in a trailer park.”